


Shine

by KatnissPotter1



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Song: Lights Up (Harry Styles)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26234482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatnissPotter1/pseuds/KatnissPotter1
Summary: "For me, the song's about like, freedom and self-reflection and self-discovery. A couple of things that I'd kind of thought about and wrestled with over the last couple of years. The song is about me accepting those things." -Harry Styles on Lights Up
Relationships: Harry Styles/Harry Styles, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31
Collections: Fine Line Fic Fest





	Shine

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the [Fine Line Fic Fest](https://finelineficfest.tumblr.com//). Make sure you check out all the other great fics in the collection which can be found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/FineLineFicFest//)!

Quick disclaimer- this is not a Larry fic. Larry is mentioned, but it is not about Harry’s relationship with Louis. I think this song is about Harry’s relationship with fame and how that relationship extends to the one he has with himself. I do not claim to know how Harry actually feels, because I don’t. I am not Harry and I do not know him personally. This is just my interpretation of his actions and the song lyrics. 

~

 _What do you mean?_

Harry still remembered the moment he realized that he wasn’t quite what he was expected to be. 

He was around five years old. His sister had dressed him up like he was her living doll. He was in a little dress, messily applied makeup on his face. They had run to his parents to show him off, Harry twirling around in his sparkly blue dress. 

“So pretty, Harry!” His mother had gushed. His father was smiling, but there was a tightness to it, a gentle but firm disapproval in his eyes. 

“Hey, buddy, let’s get out of that and go play football, what do you say?” He’d asked, and Harry had protested. He wanted to play football in the dress, and had only conceded because his sister didn’t want it ruined. That was the last time he got to play dress up. 

~  
_I’m sorry by the way_

Eleven year old Harry kissed a girl for the first time. 

He’d lied to her and had told her that he’d kissed loads of girls. He was so nervous and wasn’t sure why. It was just a kiss. He wanted to have the first one over with. 

She was a nice girl. It was an enjoyable first kiss. He just wasn’t sure what everyone was on about, in the books and movies. It felt weird and wet, and there weren’t any sparks or anything like that. Maybe it was because she wasn’t his girlfriend. 

So he’d asked her to be his girlfriend, hoping to cure the odd first kiss experience. And sure, she was nice enough, and he tried to be romantic and a good boyfriend. But it just didn’t feel right to him and he ended up breaking up with her fairly quickly. 

That was his first inkling that maybe he just wasn’t very into girls. 

_Never coming back down_

~

_Can’t you see? I could but wouldn’t stay_

Fourteen year old Harry was going through a phase. That’s what everyone said. His mother, his stepfather, everyone. But it wasn’t a phase, thank you very much. 

He wore all black all the time. He was broody, moody, and constantly annoyed. His music taste was more metal and definitely what was considered emo by his own declaration. He thought Nirvana were the greatest band to ever live and was constantly begging his parents to take him to see My Chemical Romance. 

He had decided that he wanted to entertain people. He had always been pretty good at it, school plays when he was younger and singing around the house when he was in a good mood. He didn’t think he was very shy, but sometimes he had bouts of anxiety. He knew one of his favorite movies by heart and always watched it whenever he felt particularly anxious. Knowing what was coming helped to calm him down. 

~ 

_Wouldn’t put it like that_

Fifteen (almost sixteen) year old Harry Styles joined a band. They were called White Eskimo. They were already formed, but they needed a front man. It turned out that he was a pretty good singer, and he liked it a lot more than the bakery job. His band had done pretty well for themselves, winning the local battle of the bands competition but he had had to put it on hold when his mother signed him up for the X Factor. 

He’d been so nervous leading up to it. He had to keep going to the bathroom because he was scared he would need to go before he got on stage and he was not having that be his viral moment. 

The bathroom was packed, so he just took an open spot. In the middle of doing his business, he’d gotten his aim wrong and ended up splashing the boy next to him. 

“Oops.” was the first thing out of Harry’s mouth. He was totally mortified. 

“Hi.” The boy had replied, a grin on his face. Harry had apologized immediately and further embarrassed himself by offering to clean him up. The boy had laughed and shook his head. 

“It’s fine. I’m Louis. You’re here to audition, right?” He asked once they were both finished. 

“Harry. And, uh, yeah, I am.” He replied, still quite nervous. 

“This is gonna be weird, but can I get a photo with you?” The boy had asked. 

Harry was perplexed. He’d just pissed on this boy and now he wanted a picture with him? 

“I just have a feeling about you. You don’t even have to sweat this audition, you know? I know you’re gonna be fine..” Louis gave him a friendly smile. 

“Um, sure, let me just find my mum.” Harry had said, with a shy grin.

They’d ended up taking a picture together, just hanging around and getting to know each other while they waited. Eventually Louis had to go and he’d given Harry a hug. 

“I’m glad I stood next to you at the urinals. If I had to get pee splashed on me, I’d much rather have your pee than his pee.” He smirked, making Harry laugh. 

“See you around, mate.” 

And boy did he see him around. 

~ 

_What do you mean?_

Sixteen year old Harry Styles was having the time of his life. Everything since his audition was a whirlwind of emotion. Making it, not making it, being put into a boyband, heading to the live shows. Before their very first performance, Harry had gotten a weird case of stage fright. He’d never had it like that before, and it had never been that bad. He felt like his entire body was a live wire, and everything that was happening around him was too much. He managed to get himself calm, but he knew he would have to keep an eye on it. 

Everything was always busy busy busy, but he still found time to agonize over what his new bandmate was doing to him. 

Louis Tomlinson. 

Harry had never felt like this about a boy before. Louis had a girlfriend, but the way he acted around other boys made Harry feel a way he shouldn’t. And the way he acted with Harry himself? 

He felt like a schoolgirl whenever he was around Louis. More often than not Louis had his hands on Harry, and it made him feel so nervous. He was only sixteen, but even he knew he shouldn’t feel like this. Not about a boy. 

_I’m sorry by the way_

He tried to bury it. Tried to just enjoy his friendship with the other boys, but he always came back to Louis. He found himself getting jealous when Louis was affectionate with anyone else, whether it be another contestant or any of the other boys in One Direction. He didn’t know why, and he tried to just enjoy the company of the girls on the show. 

He’d grown up with women. His mother, his sister. Most of his friends back home were girls. Most of his music library featured female singers. He felt safe around women, as they often reminded him of his mother, and what was a mother if not safety?

_Never coming around_

But the producers on the X Factor didn’t see it that way. After a while, he was often rumored to be with the girls in the house. Any of them. If they were in close quarters and a camera caught it, an article came out about him dating her. So he decided to stick closer to the boys. 

He wished he’d known how much worse that was about to get. 

_Be so sweet if things just stayed the same_  
~ 

_All the lights couldn’t put out the dark_

Seventeen year old Harry Styles was rumored to be with a woman much older than he was. He thought she was very nice, she also reminded him of his mother. He was naturally inclined to be around women, they just comforted him more than men. But he wasn’t terribly interested in any further company with them.

_Running through my heart_

He was much more interested in Louis. He was still scared, frightened of his own feelings, but Louis had assured him that it was really mutual, not just something to be played up for the cameras. But there was something else that was messing with him. He wasn’t sure how to feel about himself, knowing that he was in love with another boy. 

Especially not when it had been explained to them that they could not let these feelings be known to the public. Doing so could ruin the band, and their fifteen minutes of fame would be over before it had really begun. He didn’t want to sabotage anything for anyone, least of all these four boys that he’d come to know so well. 

So they’d come up with a plan. 

Caroline was nice, and he thought she was nice-looking. After mentioning it to Louis in passing, and Louis making a comment about it in an interview, the X Factor had allowed articles to be written about his supposed relationship with her. 

He felt bad about things people were saying about her, but there wasn’t much he could do aside from just avoid talking about it. Which was all he did for a while, mostly just saying how nice she was when he couldn’t wiggle his way out of a question from some interviewer. A few times he just said that she was hot so that they would change the subject. 

_Lights up and they know who you are_

After they’d ‘broken up’, Harry’s life became too much of a whirlwind to focus on girls or boys. Recording, tour, recording, breaking America, tour with Big Time Rush, recording. He barely had time to sleep or think. There were so many people around all the time, and all of them wanted to touch him. 

He didn’t mind hugs, giving or getting kisses, photos. He just wanted to be asked. Anytime a fan asked him for a hug or kiss he tried to give it, even when the bodyguards around him said that he couldn’t. 

He remembered the first girl who had touched him without his permission. She had just reached out and touched his hair while he was signing something for her. He’d just given her a quick smile and moved on to the next thing, but it rattled him. 

_Know who you are_

It was just his hair. Why was he making such a fuss about it? It hadn’t hurt, just startled him. He was sure it wouldn’t be the last time it happened either. He just needed to get over it and move on. 

He didn’t tell any of the other boys about how he was feeling, not even Louis. It was just his hair. No need to be so dramatic. 

_Do you know who you are?_

A TV show performance had Harry back in a state of anxiety. He had been running around stage a bit too much, and he ran out of breath when it came time to do his solo. Several people had opinions on it. On him, on the band, on his talent, on his vocal ability. Of course, it just happened to make a documentary that the band was doing. 

“I’ve always wanted to be one of those people who didn’t really care that much about what people thought about them….but I just, I just don’t think that I am.” 

~ 

_Step into the light_

An eighteen year old Harry Styles was pictured holding hands with one Taylor Swift. She was an alright person, he had nothing against her. His main problem was all the articles that were put out about them. 

_‘Harry Styles Has Another Notch on His Bedpost- New Photos with Taylor Swift!’_

_‘Notorious Lothario Harry Styles Pictured Holding Hands with Taylor Swift!’_

_‘Fans Not Happy About Harry Styles’ and Taylor Swift’s Relationship!’_

_‘Did Harry Styles Cheat on Taylor Swift?’_

_So bright sometimes_

It was a lot, and it only got worse. He didn’t blame her for capitalizing off of the story of their relationship, that was what she did. He wouldn’t say a bad word about her because there wasn’t anything to say. She’d done what she needed to keep her career going; she’d done what she was famous for. He wasn’t going to fault her for that. 

It was just strange how often he was asked about it and how often it got brought up. He became a master of dodging questions around this time, carefully picking out pieces of a question and always turning it around so he couldn’t be misquoted as saying something bad about anyone. He wasn’t interested in that. 

And still, those rumors he’d been so scared of at the start had persisted. Never mind the truth behind them, the threat of ruining the band was still there. If he had to put up with stupid questions about girls and crushes to keep the secret, he would do so. 

The band had to do a lot more red carpet events and things where they had to dress like they were classy adults, which was still strange to him. He didn’t feel like an adult. But he tried to just stick to a suit, nothing daring. Even if he longed to wear something a little more colorful, a little more odd than just a grey suit with a bowtie. 

A particularly scary interview stood out in his mind. He’d begged to be chosen for some surprise interview game and he had, which turned out to be a makeover. He’d tried to make it a joke, reading off the labels of the products in a silly voice to try and disguise the pounding of his heart. 

The boys were making fun of him, which was all well and good in any other situation. But once he found out that he wouldn’t be able to take the nail varnish off he wasn’t as keen. The interviewer began to start in on him too, so he just went quiet and let it happen. 

He tried to joke about it, but he felt like that five year old again. He felt like he was doing something wrong, and he picked off as much of the polish as he could on the way back to their hotel. 

~

_What do you mean?_

Nineteen year old Harry Styles started to feel a little more…..strange, than he ever had. He felt like he was shoved in a box. He felt like he was finding things out about himself before he even knew them himself. 

He began to get tattoos around this time. It was hard for people to report on a tattoo that they didn’t know about, but Harry knew what it was. He’d had it permanently etched into his skin, after all. It was an easy way to get some form of control back. 

_I’m sorry by the way_

Article after article about women he was pictured with, even his own sister. He was dating them all. Every interview had some question about a crush, a girl, a date. He was dating her, he was shagging her, he had multiple girls all over every hotel he was in. Even the other boys were tired of the womanizer image that they were constantly subjected to. 

He also began to feel a little out of place within himself. He had been so busy all the time that it just felt like he had no time to sit down and figure himself out. Why he felt such a pull to such…..girly things. The more feminine side of things scared him, so he began to move as far away from it as possible. 

He picked a random American football team and did some research on them. He liked the Packers well enough so he began wearing t-shirts and jerseys, wore the iconic cheesehead, and even bet that he’d get their logo tattooed on him. He lost.

Football was manly, right?

He began working out a lot more during this time too. The lads all needed to stay in shape for their antics on stage, but Harry began taking it quite seriously. He was up at 5 am to train and tried to sneak in some workouts during his busy days when he could. 

He distinctly remembered when the band were interviewed by GQ magazine. It was all about his relationships. How the music related to it, how he felt about songs that may have been written about him, how his dating life was now, the ideal girl he wanted. 

Then they asked him about his number. You know, _that_ one. 

He’d been very shocked, but he thought that he’d handled it as well as could be expected. Even if the answer wasn’t what they wanted, he’d been honest. Two people at that moment in time. It honestly just made him feel uncomfortable and he knew he wasn’t the best to be around for the rest of the day. He’d tried to just make himself scarce so the other boys wouldn’t be annoyed with his wallowing. They were having the time of their lives on tour and he was upset about yet another invasive question? He just didn’t want to bother anyone with it. 

Articles seemed to come out in waves, all touting ‘Lothario’ this and ‘womanizer’ that. He hated it. But there just wasn’t anything he could do about it. If he complained about it, it would only get worse. And the last thing he wanted to do was confirm something that just wasn’t true. He knew he was getting more and more fed up in interviews, but he couldn’t help it. They did several interviews a day, how else would someone react to being asked to confirm something that wasn’t true for the twentieth time in one day? 

The more time went on, the more anxious Harry found himself becoming. Sure, the band was a lot of fun, but he felt immense pressure to get every note right, to not ignore any sign, to pay attention to as many fans as he could. They’d paid so much money, he had to give them a good show. They were there to see him and the band. Overthinking this much led Harry to even more anxiety and for a period of time he was sick before every show. The boys were worried, but there wasn’t much they could do. Harry just had to learn to calm himself down on his own. 

_Never going back now_

Around this time, he decided he wanted to grow out his hair. He wore jerseys for whatever football team represented the area they were touring so that his slowly growing hair wouldn’t really be noticed. The fans would pay attention to his muscles, not his locks. Or that was his logic anyway. It didn’t take too long for him to need scarves to keep it up and out of his face while he was performing. Luckily, he wasn’t chastised about it because it was what he was known for- Harry Styles with the curly locks. 

~

Twenty year old Harry Styles found a girl he actually liked. She was just his friend, but of course, they were rumored to be dating almost immediately. Kendall Jenner was really nice and she appreciated his terrible jokes. He still didn’t really know how he felt about girls. He didn’t really know how he felt about boys either. He didn’t really know how he felt about much of anything to do with himself, to be perfectly honest. 

So he figured he might as well experiment. 

_Be so sweet if things just stayed the same_

He began to wear nail polish. At first it was just clear. Sometimes he’d go and get a professional manicure so he didn’t fuck them up, but he always insisted it was just maintenance. He liked having his nails look so nice and it felt good to treat himself this way. He equated it to getting his teeth whitened. 

_All the lights couldn’t put out the dark_

He also began to wear more daring clothes. He kept the headbands, which had become more like headscarves, because his hair was so long now. He found that articles would be written about that too. Most of them were negative, but there were a few positive ones that he tried to focus on. Slowly, he began to wear more flowy shirts and tighter jeans, his shoes sporting more of a heel. It was scary, but he found that the more he did it, the less people seemed to care. 

_Running through my heart_

The anxiety he felt doing that was incomparable. The first time he painted a fingernail with a color polish- a single fingernail, the color red- he was shaking for most of the show. He painted it for a charity, of course. He used the excuse of showing off his butterfly tattoo as the reason why he was wearing flowy shirts. All the excuses in the world couldn’t tamper the fear that someone would say something, that someone would comment on how girly it all was. 

He remembered the first time he’d let Lou Teasdale braid his hair. He’d been terrified. He’d never had it long enough for a braid before. He loved wearing the buns, and found them really cute. But this was his first braid. 

Of course there were articles about it almost as soon as the show was over, and so many were so horrible that Harry found himself taking out the meticulously styled braid much quicker than he’d wanted to. He didn’t want to do it again so he’d declined Lou’s offer the next night. 

_Lights up and they know who you are_

After a while, he began to try and hint at how he really felt. The articles, aside from the one about the braid, were getting better. No more issues with his shoes and his shirts. He could claim that he was painting his nails as a way to bring awareness to some organization or charity. It was an easy thing to hide behind. 

But after a while, he decided he didn’t want to hide as much anymore. The other lads all knew that he and Louis weren’t happy hiding their relationship, but there wasn’t much that they could do. But Liam decided to help Harry do what little he could. 

So, in an interview mere months after the braid articles, he began testing out the waters for the first time. He was nervous. He was scared. But he did it. 

_Know who you are_

When the interviewer asked that dreaded question, what they looked for in a girl, again, Liam had helped him set up for his revelation. 

“Female, that’s a good trait.”

“Not that important.”

The articles after that statement made him laugh more than anything else. 

_‘Harry Styles Reacts To Gay Rumors By Creating More Gay Rumors’_

_‘Harry Styles Adds More Fuel To The Gay Rumors By Making THIS Comment!’_

_‘Did Harry Styles Just Say He’s Bisexual?’_

Hell, he didn’t know. Bisexual, gay, whatever. He just knew that he liked people. He wasn’t very interested in labels. He liked Louis, he liked other boys, he liked other girls. No label necessary. Maybe one day that would change. But at that point, he was fine with how everything was. 

_Do you know who you are?_

~ 

_Step into the light_

Twenty two year old Harry Styles had hair down to his shoulders. Twenty two year old Harry Styles wore flowy shirts, floral suits, high heeled boots. He felt the most confident he ever had. There were still articles, but he was starting to accept that there would always be articles. He always had support. Louis had grown his hair out with him until he felt comfortable enough to sport it on his own. 

Speaking of Louis, he felt more comfortable in his attraction to him than he ever had before. Some part of him had felt that small town shame for a long time, and he felt like it was finally time to shed it. 

He liked a boy, and it wasn’t the end of the world. 

Zayn had left the band, and Harry found that it hurt. He wasn’t proud of the way he responded to it. He either ignored it completely, or made a snide joke about it. Zayn hadn't been happy in the band, but he had made things harder for them by leaving the way that he did.

_So bright sometimes_

There was another interview that reminded him that his body wasn’t really his. The interviewer had asked some asinine question about his hair, and then she had reached out to touch it. Harry had simply let it happen, but he felt that same fear as when the girl at the signing had touched him without his permission. He was uncomfortable for the rest of the interview. 

After that woman touched him, it became more of a thing. Fans would touch his hair without permission during meet and greets, fans would sneak their hands up his legs during shows. He felt little more than a pretty thing to be pawed at. He never said anything about it, tried to just brush it all under the rug. But it was still pretty rough.

It was around this time that the boys had all decided that they wanted to pause the band. Zayn was gone, and that made the other boys curious as to what their careers would be like if they were on their own. 

It was an unsaid thing that Harry would be the most famous of them. In addition to the womanizer image, he’d been given the unwanted Justin Timberlake title. The one who would go solo and be bigger than the band had ever been. After seeing it in articles enough times, Harry had just come to accept it. He knew it wasn’t fair, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. 

~ 

_Do you know who you are?_

Twenty three year old Harry Styles was lost. The band that had been such a large part of his formative years was done. He’d just signed two big contracts and he wanted to just throw himself in them for a while. He wanted to make decisions on his own, that only affected him. He wanted to not play it as safe as he had before, he wanted to take risks. 

He auditioned for a film. It was scary, and new, and exciting, but he wanted to be a part of it. He had to cut his hair once he made it through. It was a tough decision, but he needed to do it if he wanted to be in the movie.

He also just happened to have a magazine photoshoot around his haircut. No biggie. But this one was different. He felt more vulnerable. Sure, he was alone, but he was wearing things that he never would have dreamed of only two years ago. Collars, for example. He liked loose, high-waisted pants so much, and he found that he enjoyed the illusion of fuller hips they gave him. It was definitely refreshing after the years of skinny jeans. 

He got to play with color and texture. The stylists had wanted to take it in a different direction- pun fully intended- than he was used to. Most of it he approved of, and he was very happy with the final shoot. It was different for him, but it felt like the most true to himself he’d been in a long time. 

He enjoyed the movie, he really did, but he felt like he was back to the way he’d been. Overly masculine, overly playing a part. He was a soldier in a war movie for fuck’s sake, he needed to be a bit more manly. But it was just a part. He could let go of it easier than before. 

_Be so sweet if things just stayed the same_

Being with Fionn helped. It was both of their first movies, but Harry had been doing the interviews for years. More often than not the two of them were together for interviews, and this allowed him to take some of the pressure off of Fionn. He could say silly things and watch the other boy become exasperated at his nonsense, not unlike the boys in the band. He felt much more comfortable. It was different, but it was just another job. Just another round of promo. At least no one wanted to touch his hair anymore. 

_La da da da da_

Afterwards, he had to get ready to record his first ever solo album. It felt weird. He had the final say on everything. It was all his decision, and that definitely made him feel more like an adult than he ever had. He didn’t want to hold back this time and decided to slowly venture out in something he never would have done back in the band. 

The songs he kept a little more tame. He was influenced by what he listened to, so it was different from the band, but he wanted to be able to play it a little more safely. He wasn’t ready to take too many big risks. This was all him, after all. So what he took from the songs he gave to the album shoot. He wanted pink. He wanted flowers. He wanted water. He found himself gravitating towards the women’s suits and decided to just wear them. 

His first tour was nerve-wracking. But he took as many flags from his fans as he could, waved them all around. He began making speeches about how fans needed to accept themselves and be who they wanted to be for the night that they shared with him, and he began to do that himself. He could be himself when he was on stage, more than he could anywhere else. 

No one wanted to see him fake it. 

~

Twenty-four year old Harry Styles turned this age during a break from his first solo tour. 

When he went back, he kept with the fun suits. He went with floral because it felt safe, but feminine too. He wanted the fun colors, so he kept them. He loved performing all his own songs and even some songs from the band. He allowed himself to sing a song that he had written about boys and girls that hadn’t made it onto his first album, and his fans loved it. The scariest line for him to sing aloud became the loudest thing that people heard. 

He felt free. 

He allowed himself to be more daring. He wore more interesting suits. Higher heels. More nail polish. He allowed himself to act silly, to imitate fans even if they were acting ‘girly’. He eventually began wearing outfits that were sparkly and definitely more feminine. He opted to wear a kilt for the show in Glasgow and he had never felt more free in his entire life. 

He began wearing dresses and skirts in private too. It just felt good. 

He took this feeling and brought it on tour with him, feeling so much more open than he had in years. He just wanted to perform and be himself and people were accepting it for the first time in his life. There were no more negative articles about his clothing or his nails. 

When he was invited to co-chair the Met Gala, with the theme being Camp, he could have fainted. He was so happy with what he wore, the black mesh and lace ensemble with the nails and the pearl earring, and he felt safe with his friend by his side. He knew that there would be articles, but he wasn’t too worried about them anymore. There would always be articles no matter what he did, so he figured he might as well be happy doing it.

_All the lights couldn’t put out the dark_

~ 

Twenty five year old Harry Styles took a lot of time to himself. He decided to go to therapy. He allowed himself to be vulnerable with his friends. He felt much better and more secure in himself. He drank and did drugs and just allowed himself to be young. He felt like he was so far beyond his own years and he wanted to be young. He just wanted to have fun. 

So he wrote all kinds of songs. He wrote funny songs. He wrote terrible songs. He wrote jams, he wrote bangers, he wrote absolute shit. But he was having so much fun making music that he didn’t care about the bad ones. Sure, he had some sad moments. But it was all part of being more open. 

_Running through my heart_

He was also a bit more pathetic on this album. He allowed himself to wallow. He allowed himself to whine. He allowed himself to just be human, and not the sexual robot he’d been written to be. The song he was most proud of was about things he had struggled with in the past- the feminine side, the liking boys side, his old image- and now he was accepting those things. 

_Lights up and they know who you are_

For the first time in a photoshoot, he wore a dress. He felt fully into his own, and nothing could ruin that. Not even the question about his sexuality. He felt confident enough in his explanation of it. He knew that he would be asked, and he was fine with the interviewer’s response as long as it was respectful. He just didn’t care about the articles anymore. 

_Know who you are_

But the truly defining photoshoot for him was his most interesting to date. A full face of makeup. Surrealism. Fishnet stockings. Single word answers. Lace. Feathers. There was no interview. He had no one to answer to. He did simply as he wished, for the first time in his life. He was comfortable, he was happy. 

~ 

Harry Styles is still happy. The thing he loves most in the world has been put on hold, but he still feels free. He is never going to come back down. 

As he looks out at the crowd singing to him, asking them to go louder and louder, he smiles at the question. 

_Do you know who you are?_

“I do now.”


End file.
